Cameron Diaz has made a whole lot of movies throughout her career, her recent and seemingly concluded hiatus from acting notwithstanding … but if you haven’t seen her pitch-dark 2011 comedy “Bad Teacher,” you’re missing out. If you haven’t seen the 2014 TV adaptation of “Bad Teacher,” which happens to star Sara Gilbert — a veteran of “The Big Bang Theory” — that’s … probably for the best.
Let’s start with the original movie, which stars Diaz as Elizabeth Halsey, the titular “bad teacher” who barely cares about her job and is thrilled at the idea of quitting after she marries her wealthy fiancé Mark (Nat Faxon) — only for Mark to break up with her because she’s so selfish and treats him horribly. Stuck in her job as a middle school teacher, Diaz develops a wild fixation on a new teacher named Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) — much to the chagrin of her work nemesis and fellow teacher Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), whose bubbly exterior masks a seriously dark mind. When Elizabeth finds out that he typically dates seriously busty girls, she decides she desperately needs a breast augmentation and concocts a demented plan to fudge her class’ standardized test scores to secure a bonus. Along the way, she forms an unexpected bond with the school’s equally careless but deeply affable gym teacher, Russell Gettis, played by “How I Met Your Mother” and “Shrinking” star Jason Segel.
The film was definitely a box office success — earning $216 million on a modest $20 million budget — but didn’t fare as well with critics. Still, CBS decided to launch a TV adaptation with Diaz as a producer … and it flopped after just 13 episodes, earning a cancellation partway through its inaugural season. So what happened, and who did Gilbert even play? (Hint: not the character based on Elizabeth.)
Read more: 15 Actors Who Didn’t Deserve Their Oscars
The Bad Teacher TV show had a great cast but just couldn’t succeed
Irene staring at Meredith at school in Bad Teacher – CBS
On the CBS sitcom adapted from “Bad Teacher” that bears the exact same name, Ari Graynor — whom you might know from projects like “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist” and “For a Good Time, Call…” — plays Meredith Davis, a character based on Elizabeth Halsey with some slight differences. Meredith is recently divorced — not about to get married — and needs to find a job, eventually landing at Richard Nixon Middle School thanks to her friend’s stepdaughter Lily (Sara Rodier), who happens to be a student there. Like Elizabeth, Meredith is deeply ill-suited for the job and immediately runs afoul of stricter teachers like Ginny Taylor-Clapp (“Sex and the City” and “And Just Like That…” star Kristin Davis), but she does make an unlikely friend: Sara Gilbert’s character Irene, who has trouble making friends and basically idolizes Elizabeth.
The cast of the “Bad Teacher” adaptation is genuinely incredible. Graynor, Gilbert, and Davis are all extremely funny performers, and they’re flanked by comedic pinch hitters like David Alan Grier (as the middle school’s recently divorced principal Carl Gaines) and “Veronica Mars” and “Party Down” veteran Ryan Hansen (as the gym teacher, Joel Kotsky, who develops an immediate crush on Meredith).
The show was, unfortunately, an instant failure; it started running on CBS on April 24, 2014, and was actually canceled by May of that year, though the rest of the episodes eventually aired during CBS’s summer break. Honestly, as much as I respect every single person involved with the show, this was probably for the best.
Bad Teacher is best in its original form: a movie
Elizabeth with her Louboutin heels up on the desk in Bad Teacher – Sony Pictures Releasing
With the utmost due respect to the creative team and cast of the TV adaptation of “Bad Teacher,” I don’t think this particular movie should have ever been turned into a television show. Why? Well, a character as abrasive, gross, and off-putting as Elizabeth Halsey is extremely fun to watch for the run time of a movie, but that sort of character archetype doesn’t usually work for an entire television series that runs every single week, especially on network television.
I’ve watched “Bad Teacher” a bunch of times, actually. It’s something that I’ll always queue up if I see it, and I think it’s a genuinely funny and charming movie that always makes me laugh, especially because Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel are so great in it. (Unfortunately, even though I am decidedly not a fan of the guy, Justin Timberlake is also seriously funny in his role.) Something I think is really remarkable about this movie is that, at the end of the day, Diaz’s Elizabeth doesn’t need to become a better “person,” necessarily; she doesn’t have to be peppier or more palatable to anyone, and even though she learns some lessons about opening yourself up to other people when she eventually agrees to go on a date with Russell, she still gets away with all of her bad deeds (even if she is generally a little bit nicer to anyone). It’s unbelievably refreshing to watch a movie where a female anti-hero gets away with everything and doesn’t apologize, and I doubt that the TV show could have kept that feeling fresh week after week.
I can hear you all yelling, “But wait! What about ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,’ a show where nobody ever changes or becomes better?” That’s different. First of all, “Always Sunny” is a singular, lightning-in-a-bottle phenomenon, and second of all, everyone on the show acts like a wonderfully unrepentant jerk. The longevity of the “Bad Teacher” TV show never would never really have worked, and that’s okay. Thankfully, you can stream the movie on Netflix now.
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